The present invention relates to separation of oil and water and particularly to equipment and techniques for accomplishing such separation in an efficient and effective manner.
There are many sources of oil-and-water mixtures in the industrialized world. These include prominently automobile service stations, where oil is frequently spilled and then contaminated with water during clean-up. Likewise oil soaked rags are washed in water, again resulting in an oil-and-water mixture. Another major source is the clean-up of the interiors of oil storage tanks and oil transport trucks. The resulting substances are no longer permitted to be discharged into sewers, or streams. Rather, they must be collected and then purified, by removing essentially all the oil before disposing of the water. The separated oil is then preferably recycled, thereby actually deriving some value from what would otherwise be waste.
Various techniques have been proposed for accomplishing the desired separation, but these have left something to be desired, from the standpoint of effectiveness, efficiency, controllability, or flexibility.